Winless in five and goalless in four, Chester FC return to National League North action this afternoon looking to get their promotion bid back on track.

Darlington are the visitors to the Swansway Chester Stadium this afternoon, and the two sides are no strangers to each other with this being the 111th meeting between the two sides.

The away side arrive in need of a victory to pull themselves clear of the bottom sides while Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley's Chester side need a success to get over their mini-slump that has occurred over the past four weeks or so.

New signing Akwasi Asante is expected to make his Chester debut this afternoon following his loan move from Tamworth, and they will be looking to him for goals after they have become goal shy in recent weeks.

Gary Roberts serves a one-match ban and that could open the door for teenager Cain Noble to make a mark, while two players who won't feature are John Pritchard and Luke Jordan who have sealed temporary moves away from the club to Buxton and Lancaster City respectively.

We'll bring you all the action as it happens as the Blues take on the Quakers.

And it was a memorable day as Akwasi Asante netted a perfect hat-trick on his debut as the Blues got back to winning ways to move up to third in the National League North.

Mooney reacts to his dismissal

A word from the skipper

Next up for the Blues

The Blues now have a week to recover before they next take to the pitch.

They head to Edgeley Park next Saturday to take on Stockport County, who are not in league action this weekend.

Jim Gannon’s Hatters travel to Barnet tomorrow in the FA Cup second round.

18:42John McDougall

What has that done to the table?

The win today has moved the Blues up to third in the National League North.

Chester remain four points off top spot as Bradford (Park Avenue) also took maximum points today with a 2-0 win against fellow promotion hopefuls AFC Telford United.

18:39John McDougall

Asante's standing ovation on his debut

18:34John McDougall

Blues fans have their say

18:28John McDougall

In the history books

18:23John McDougall

Player reaction: Craig Mahon

18:18John McDougall

Man of the moment with the match ball

18:13John McDougall

Brilliant fundraising for Hughes

Away from the action on the pitch, Darlington fans have been helping to raise money for injured Blues forward Matty Hughes.

He is recovering from ACL surgery and it means he cannot yet go back to his day job which involved labouring and heavy lifting.

A total £2,732 has been raised today for him to help tide him over, especially with Christmas coming up and a young family to provide for.

More than £400 of this has come from Darlington fans, too, which is a fantastic gesture.

18:07KEY EVENT

WATCH: Anthony Johnson's post-match reaction

17:59KEY EVENT

Dave Powell's match report

As ever, our Blues reporter Dave Powell was at the Swansway today for today’s game to watch, and I quote, the ‘best Chester debut I’ve ever seen’.

High praise indeed and you can read his match report and details of a brilliant day for the Blues and Akwasi Asante by clicking HERE.

Akwasi Asante celebrates his hat-trick (Image: Terry Marland)

17:54John McDougall

Johnson: We're still hoping to bring another player in

We’ve got bodies coming back. George Green’s now done the last three sessions. Scott Burton’s having his op next week so he’ll be back for the end of this month. All of a sudden, you’ve got two of your star signings coming back in. We’re hoping still to add another player and we’re starting to look good for the second part of the season.

17:51John McDougall

Johnson on the difference between today and the last five games

I think the obvious thing is that we’ve been crying out for someone that will offer us something in behind. I think you saw early doors in the game, the ball went into Akwasi’s body, set to Duds and Anthony Dudley loves coming onto the ball. He then gets the ball past the man to score, rather than him being the focal point, he’s a great player coming onto second balls, Anthony Dudley. But it’s something that we’ve been looking for since we’ve been at the club, but they don’t exist. Every single club at our level and the league above is looking for them. But we haven’t been overly concerned whatsoever with our performances. We’ve played some good stuff but we’ve just looked a bit toothless in that final third, but we knew that would come back. We’ve got to replicate that every single week.

17:43John McDougall

Johnson: They didn't cause us problems with 10 men

We kept creating chances with 10 men and it was a good finish to be fair theirs from 20 yards. I think apart from that, they’ve not caused us one single problem. We said at half-time we allow the ball to go out wide and we’ll deal with anything that comes in the box. I think you saw Danny Livesey’s positioning and Grandy’s positioning once it went out wide and the areas that they took up. I think the most pleasing thing for me and Bernard was that looked like one of our sides and what it did six, seven, eight weeks ago. That’s what we’re about, our work rate when we don’t have the ball, and the other stuff on the ball, we have to get right again, but it was a good starting point again today.

17:34John McDougall

Johnson: A good team performance capped off by amazing hat-trick

There were some good performances there. The two centre backs again and Grandy was fantastic, Matty Thomson at right back, the young kid (Cain Noble) in there with Gary Stopforth. When you consider we’ve got our captain and vice-captain missing in the middle of the park. Anthony Dudley’s work rate was phenomenal. I can throw every superlative out there at every single player, but it was just a good team performance capped off by an amazing hat-trick.

17:30John McDougall

Johnson on the circumstances behind Asante becoming a Blue

I know there’s people questioning about why we’ve signed him and why he couldn’t get in Tamworth’s team, but he signed for Tamworth in February from Grimsby and they were fifth in this league believe it or not at that time and they didn’t win again and they got relegated. He basically told them that wasn’t what he signed up for. He was honest with the manager had no problem with that but he said ‘look, you’re not going to be playing if you don’t want to be here’. So we’ve been very lucky that we got him in weird circumstances, but we knew exactly what he was about, you all knew what he was about because of what he did at Solihull and our job is to try and get the best out of him. But as an individual performance he was fantastic.

17:26John McDougall

Johnson on 'unbelievable' Asante debut

He was unbelievable, but not just his goals, his actual hold up play and his work rate, so everything was there if you take the goals away. It was one of the best hat-tricks I’ve ever seen. His second goal was absolutely out of this world and he could have had a couple more. He had a header cleared off the line in the second half as well. There was one where Gary Stopforth has rolled it across to him and he cramped up. But that’s his first start in months.

17:22Dave Powell

Asante reaction

17:16John McDougall

Johnson: All credit to the players for digging in

All the credit goes to the players there for digging in. I think I’m right in saying Darlington hadn’t been beat in six or seven games in the league up until today and I thought they were a nice team – they kept the ball in good areas, but they played into our hands by going into central areas too many times and it was a fantastic performance from us.

17:03John McDougall

Anthony Johnson giving his reaction

Blues joint-boss Anthony Johnson is giving his reaction right now live on our Facebook page and you can watch it by clicking HERE.

16:56John McDougall

Reaction coming up

Well what a debut that was! The perfect hat-trick from Akwasi Asante on his Blues bow means an end to Chester’s winless run and a much needed three points.

We’ll bring you the reaction from the Blues’ managerial team as soon as we have it.